Disturbance In The Force
by RapunzelK
Summary: Edna's thoughts concerning Syndrome.


The summer of 1969 I felt a disturbance in the Force, as they say in the movie. I didn't think much of it then. Indeed, I didn't think much about it at all until years later. Even when I began to receive phone calls and then visitors, I didn't think of it. Those are the hazards of being sensitive to what goes on in other peoples heads, you get so many visions, overhear so many conversations, that you learn to take it all with a grain of salt. Sometimes it can be difficult to tell what is important.

I had a dream early in 1970. It wasn't anything I hadn't had before, just me showing the most brilliant work of my career. A runway show like no other- full of masks and boots and gauntlets and even the odd cape. Which was funny because I don't trust the things as a rule. A show of Supers for Supers… It wasn't so much the adulation on my behalf but the feeling that I had honestly DONE something. I had done something for these people that no one else had ever managed to do. It had never been so strong, so real, so wonderful. It was my favorite dream during those empty fifteen years. I wanted to fall asleep and replay it every night, but it only came a handful of times. And it never came as strongly.

Later that same year, I began to get visits from some old friends. It started with a call from Psychewave. God knows what she'd done to her suit, she refused to tell me, but it looked as if she'd tried to wash it in a blender. There was nothing for it but to make her a new one. She resisted at first, but there wasn't anything I could do with her original. I have to say making her a redesign was like removing the lid from a casket. It was as if I'd been dead or drugged and now my brain had finally come to life again. I don't think I ever finished a suit so quickly. I knew she was retired, she knew I was retired, and yet we didn't care. I certainly could have cared less. As an independantly wealthy equipper I'd suffer far less legally than she would, but still it was a risk we were both desperate to take. I tried to get her to tell me who had requested her assistance but she couldn't say. She only gave me one name: Nomanisan. I think that was when the idea for a suit started growing. I think it was also when the other dream started.

I called her later to see how the suit was working. She told me that the suit was faring very well. She, however, was stuck at her day job behind a desk with a severly broken leg. Sixteen fractures, I think, the doctors counted between her hip and ankle. She refused to tell me how she'd gotten them.

Macroburst was my next visit. He came twice, the second time to return his beautiful new suit, his right arm full of pins and coated in three inches of plaster. He couldn't tell me much more than Psychwave. With every call and visit I did manage to learn a little more. By the time Mr. Incredible called I had a fair amount of information, but little to go on. I knew there was someone on a volcanic island called Nomanisan with problems controlling his pet giant robot. It was he who kept hiring supers to deal with it. Over twenty applicants had been reviewed, tested, and released upon injury. Most of them had come to see me at one point or another for either repairs or updates. Three never came back at all: Universal Man, Blazestone, and Gazerbeam. I confess the GPS locator was not just for Helen's benefit. I myself was curious as to where this mystery man was hiding. I could have kissed him for the creative outlet he'd allowed me and the others. It is a terrible thing to have your dreams stolen away, to be told your talents are not only useless but bad, and to be forced into the suffocation of mediocrity. There is nothing, NOTHING, worse than having to try to be something you aren't.

At any rate, I was designing suits again; they were fighting crime again. Even though there were aspects about it that made me suspicious, we did it anyway. We were all desperate for some form of outlet. The monotany of civilian life was just too much for most of them to handle, myself included.

I designed many beautiful, functional suits and accessories for my old friends in the NSA, but they were not the only suits I created. There was one I worked on that none of them knew about. One I myself hardly knew about. I didn't even know whom it was for. I only knew it was in my head and I HAD to get it out or risk popping something important. I could usually content my mind with sketches and mock-ups but this suit demanded to me more than a mere model. It would be made and it would be made out of everything that was in me. I don't think any outfit has ever exhausted me the way that one did. I was tired and shaky when I finally finished it, every measurement and seam perfect though I'd never met the wearer. I wouldn't meet him until almost four years later, after the Incredibles dealt with what would come to be known as the Omnidroid Attack.

He showed up on my doorstep one day about six months after the leveling of the financial district. I'd never seen him before in my life, but I recognized him at once. Not as the rascal who was behind the Omnidroid affair, but as the owner of the suit. He was tall, sheepish, young. Very young. To me, anyway. I could still see the little boy behind that mask. We spoke briefly, he comissioned a suit, and I sent him on his way. It was a surreal experience for me. I dusted off the suit, made a few modifications here and there, and set it up for display in my studio. I think he was impressed when I showed it to him the following day. It was the first time I ever felt nervous showing off my creative efforts to someone. Normally if someone doesn't like something of mine, it's because they have no taste and I dismiss them as the idiot that they are. In this instance…I was actually WORRIED that he would have something to say against it. Much to my relief, he was delighted with it (and his new hairdo). He looked…different in the new suit. More grown-up, sure of himself, more at ease. As much as I fought with myself on it, I'm glad I left the cape on. It just NEEDED to be there. And at least I know he won't have to worry about clotheslining himself on it.

Still, I rather wonder what he did with his old suit. He didn't leave it in the dressing room. Perhaps he'll tell me about that some time. I'm happy to say he's become one of my regulars. As I had deeply hoped he would be.

One day, I'll to teach him to fly without rockets.


End file.
